Coppersmith
Senior Member
- Location
- Tampa, FL, USA
- Occupation
- Electrical Contractor
California to require solar panels on all new homes
- Thread starter Coppersmith
- Start date
- Status
drcampbell
Senior Member
- Location
- The Motor City, Michigan USA
- Occupation
- Registered Professional Engineer
What's unaffordable about a negative electric bill?
winnie
Senior Member
- Location
- Springfield, MA, USA
- Occupation
- Electric motor research
If the net result is a negative electric bill, then this mandate might actually be worth it to the people buying these new houses. But the numbers are really not clear.
1) The solar install may add value to the property, and so raises the property taxes.
2) The calculations of installed cost and benefit depend heavily on subsidies, both actual cash subsidy and 'net metering'; these subsidies could change
3) Especially with respect to the net metering subsidy, energy costs will be increased for other consumers; IMHO lowering costs for rich folk who can afford new houses and raising them for poor folk who don't get the benefits of the solar install.
On the plus side, like computers and other electronics, solar power is essentially carefully organized sand. A huge portion of the expense is capital investment in the production facilities. The more users the less expensive it becomes.
-Jon
1) The solar install may add value to the property, and so raises the property taxes.
2) The calculations of installed cost and benefit depend heavily on subsidies, both actual cash subsidy and 'net metering'; these subsidies could change
3) Especially with respect to the net metering subsidy, energy costs will be increased for other consumers; IMHO lowering costs for rich folk who can afford new houses and raising them for poor folk who don't get the benefits of the solar install.
On the plus side, like computers and other electronics, solar power is essentially carefully organized sand. A huge portion of the expense is capital investment in the production facilities. The more users the less expensive it becomes.
-Jon
ggunn
PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
- Location
- Austin, TX, USA
- Occupation
- Consulting Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
Not necessarily. Some places have legislation in place that forbids the inclusion of a PV system in a property assessment. I do not know about California, though.
True enough, but installed subsidies are up front so changes after the fact don't affect ROI. Most places have locked in net metering contracts which protect customers from later tariff changes.
Again, not necessarily. If PV systems relieve or ameliorate the utility having to go to the spot market for power during peak periods, that reduces costs for everyone. Also, here in Austin for example, The Value Of Solar method of calculating the financial returns on a PV system (solar kWh's pay everyone the same irrespective of what usage tier the customer is on) does a lot to level the playing field. For another thing, community solar projects are popping up all over the place where anyone can buy into a system and have their portion of its production figured into their electric bill through virtual metering.
True dat.
Strathead
Senior Member
- Location
- Ocala, Florida, USA
- Occupation
- Electrician/Estimator/Project Manager/Superintendent
Might I remind you or educate you that California is the state that put car pool lanes in and free bridge tolls for people in car pools. Then once they got enough participation that claimed they were losing too much money and started charging tolls for car pools. Encourages high MPG cars and then raises gas taxes because people are using less gas. Good luck with that negative energy cost. And FYI I was a Californian for 25 years so I am not just a Floridian speaking out my butt.
ggunn
PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
- Location
- Austin, TX, USA
- Occupation
- Consulting Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
California doesn't have a monopoly on that kind of thing. Here in Texas we needed some new highways, so we built them as toll roads and then sold them to a Spanish company. Our toll fees go overseas. Remember when tolls were collected to pay for roadways and stopped when the roads were paid for? Those days are long gone.
drcampbell
Senior Member
- Location
- The Motor City, Michigan USA
- Occupation
- Registered Professional Engineer
In my native Chicago, mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to sell the El to a public-private partnership. Loosely translated, that means the public pays the bill and the private partners collect the profit.
Infrastructure requires materials, labor & expertise, and the people providing it need to be paid a fair wage. Privatization is a short-term solution to a public that doesn't wanna pay for public investments. Naturally, it costs more in the long run, but Americans are notoriously bad at long-term thinking. Remember the mechanic on TV with the oil filters? "You can pay me now, or you can pay me later." Same thing. Unfortunately, a lot of people are opting for "Pay me later." and the capitalists are more than happy to oblige.
Infrastructure requires materials, labor & expertise, and the people providing it need to be paid a fair wage. Privatization is a short-term solution to a public that doesn't wanna pay for public investments. Naturally, it costs more in the long run, but Americans are notoriously bad at long-term thinking. Remember the mechanic on TV with the oil filters? "You can pay me now, or you can pay me later." Same thing. Unfortunately, a lot of people are opting for "Pay me later." and the capitalists are more than happy to oblige.
Remember when "Pssst ... want to buy a bridge?" did not mean that you could actually buy a bridge?
- Location
- New Jersey
- Occupation
- Journeyman Electrician
Putting a gun to someones head and forcing them to install systems that they have to pay for and may not want is un-American. I'm not surprised that they came up with this scam in California.
electrofelon
Senior Member
- Location
- Cherry Valley NY, Seattle, WA
- Occupation
- Electrician
Kinda agree, but on the other hand you can say the same thing about pretty much any building and energy code.
- Location
- New Jersey
- Occupation
- Journeyman Electrician
I'm all for safety as part of the building code but this goes beyond that.
electrofelon
Senior Member
- Location
- Cherry Valley NY, Seattle, WA
- Occupation
- Electrician
What about energy codes requiring certain glazing or insulation levels?
- Location
- New Jersey
- Occupation
- Journeyman Electrician
There is no negative aesthetics that go with things like that. IMO nothing looks worse on an expensive home than ugly solar panels. If one wants to live with the ugliness to get free energy that should be by choice not government mandate.
- Location
- Illinois
- Occupation
- retired electrician
But in the same manner the generation and transmission they have to have to be able to supply all of the load when solar is not available increases the cost for everyone as they are selling less energy and that means they have to charge more per unit to cover those costs. If they can't cover the costs of the infrastructure needed to supply all of the loads when the "green" supplies are not available, they will no longer maintain that equipment, and we will not be able to expect that the lights will come on every time we flip the switch.
electrofelon
Senior Member
- Location
- Cherry Valley NY, Seattle, WA
- Occupation
- Electrician
I am probably with you in that I dont think that should be mandated. But I have to bust on you for saying solar panels are ugly. Wouldnt want to cover up those beautiful asphalt shingles.....
ggunn
PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
- Location
- Austin, TX, USA
- Occupation
- Consulting Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
All grid tied solar that has no batteries shuts down when the grid goes down; it has nothing to do with the homeowner not being "allowed" to use the power it produces. California's solar initiative cannot rewrite the laws of physics.
drcampbell
Senior Member
- Location
- The Motor City, Michigan USA
- Occupation
- Registered Professional Engineer
I'm pretty sure no law of physics says that you can't disconnect from the grid and locally utilize the electricity your solar panels are generating.
Coppersmith
Senior Member
- Location
- Tampa, FL, USA
- Occupation
- Electrical Contractor
The panels are designed to stop producing when the grid goes down for safety purposes. Otherwise they would backfeed the grid and shock a line crew. I believe that if you have a transfer switch and a small generator, they will still work.
electrofelon
Senior Member
- Location
- Cherry Valley NY, Seattle, WA
- Occupation
- Electrician
Yes, it can be done. One is free to use the power when the grid goes down, however they would need other system components such as batteries and a "off grid" inverter, or a second inverter that "fakes" the grid for the grid tie inverter and can use/dump all the power thrown at it. It gets expensive and complicated so is not worth it.
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